By Julia Prodis Sulek | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group PUBLISHED: November 10, 2018 at 6:00 am | UPDATED: November 10, 2018 at 6:00 am Bay Area women have been at the forefront of politics for years, holding both of California’s U.S. Senate seats, five of the region’s eight House seats and the most powerful one — the Speaker of the House — that likely will be reclaimed in January by veteran Nancy Pelosi. Is the rest of the country finally catching up? “You’re a little feminist Utopia out there,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Politics and Women at Rutgers University in New Jersey, a state without a female congresswoman for more than a decade until it elected one in 2014 and a second on Tuesday. While Bay Area leaders are welcoming 2018’s “women’s wave” that helped flip the Republican-controlled House to the Democrats, bringing historic diversity and a rebuke of President Trump’s brand of politics, some are still asking: Is that all you’ve got? “I’ll celebrate that we’ve had a mini wave,” U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, a San Mateo Democrat, said in an interview this week. “But it’s not time to crow. We don’t have true equality.” At least 35 female newcomers were elected to the House on Tuesday, predominantly Democrats. Come January, when all the votes have been counted, the total for the first time will eclipse 100 congresswomen out of 435 House members. Still, more than half of all voters are women, and the… [Read full story]
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